Professional Valorant team Squirtle Squad forced to change their name owing to Nintendo’s policy

The newfound North American Valorant roster, Squirtle Squad, has run into a complication with their team name, thanks to Nintendo's unbending trademark policy. One of the team's players, Peter “Governor” No, took to Twitter to announce the dilemma they are facing while looking for new names.

Squirtle is a popular Pokémon species known for its adorable look and nature. Evidently, the water-type Pokémon has its name and image trademarked under Nintendo's The Pokémon Company. Furthermore, Nintendo has always been known for its strict copyright policies.

Having the label of a hallmarked Pokémon has gotten Squirtle Squad into a mess, where they have been formally approached to change the roster name, only a few days ahead of an important official tournament.

---

Valorant team Squirtle Squad to participate in the VCT Challengers League 2023 under a new name

On January 25, 2023, Governor posted a tweet stating the team's situation and urged fans to help them decide on a new roster name. He proclaimed:

"Best reply will be our team name going into challengers."

While many of his followers had interesting ideas, the team hasn't announced its final decision yet. It's hard to change to a different name, particularly when the title was pretty apt, to begin with.

By definition, a "Squirtle Squad" is used to denote a group of Squirtle Pokémon who have been abandoned by their trainers, thus, a fitting convention for a group of free Valorant agents/athletes.

Unfortunately, Nintendo has prevented them from accomplishing a 'Squirtle Squad' goal in the upcoming VCT Challengers League.

The Challengers League is set to start on February 1, 2023, leaving participants with less than a week to gear up. However, the Squad has an additional problem to deal with, before the tournament commences.

The promising Valorant roster features athletes like Peter "Governor" No, Matthew "WeDid" Suchan, Anthony "Okeanos" Nguyen, Mohammed "Harmful" Choudhary, and Jack "Add3r" Hayashi. Moreover, Squirtle Squad's performance in the open and last chance qualifiers has been heavily acknowledged in the community.

They managed to qualify for the North American VCT Challengers League after a long battle in the erstwhile qualifiers stage. The roster was knocked out of the opening qualifiers after losing two back-to-back matchups.

That said, they stood strong against their opponents in the last-chance qualifiers. Having won eight back-to-back Valorant matchups in the LCQ, Squirtle Squad qualified for the league stage, alongside OREsports.

Squirtle Squad has been placed in Group A, featuring invited Valorant teams like Shopify Rebellion, G2 Esports, and FaZe Clan. The first group also features BreakThru and Oxygen Esports, who received their slots through the open qualifiers.